


Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)

by RiverHoneyDoctorSweetie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship, Reader centric, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:20:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21760801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverHoneyDoctorSweetie/pseuds/RiverHoneyDoctorSweetie
Summary: Reader and her child find themselves in a rather horrific situation. Reader is written as female, child is written neutrally.
Relationships: Pre Ezekiel/Reader
Kudos: 5





	Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)

**Author's Note:**

> First fic I've written for this fandom, hope you enjoy.  
> y/n = your name  
> y/c/n = your child's name  
> y/c/e/c = your child's eye colour  
> y/c/h/c = your child's hair colour

This was it. I honestly did not know how in the fuck I could possibly manage to get us out of this particular jam.

We’d been driving along this long, empty road for a few hours. Myself in the driver’s seat, y/c/n sitting in the back seat playing with a slightly dingy stuffed elephant I’d scavenged for them a while ago. I had, stupidly, I realized in hindsight, allowed myself to linger a moment too long while glancing back at y/c/n as they played only to look back at the road and instinctively slam down on the brakes as my brain processed the human looking creature shambling across the pavement before us.

When the car screeched and jolted to a stop and my mind caught up to the situation I quickly realized my mistake and attempted to press down on the gas. The car didn’t budge. The walker stumbled closer, now about thirty feet away. I turned the key in the ignition to off, then back on. More walkers, so many, began to emerge from the tree line. It wouldn’t turn over.

Y/c/n was silent in the back seat, watching in wide eyed fear as the monsters inched ever closer. I quickly motioned for them to lie flat on the floor of the car while I scrambled for the only weapon within my immediate reach, got out of the car, and hurriedly locked the doors behind me, hoping against hope that I could get us – get _y/c/n_ \- out of this safely.

So there I was. Standing atop the roof of a car (a small child quietly hidden inside said car) armed with nothing but the broken off pole of a wooden broom and attempting to single-handedly fight off a herd of walkers.

I’d been managing to keep the swarm at bay for a short while, stabbing those closest to me in the head as best as I could, but I was severely outnumbered. I guessed there must have been something like thirty or so walkers surrounding us, but to be honest I was a bit too preoccupied to properly count them.

Suddenly, one of the dead managed to grab hold of my pant leg and pull. It wasn’t enough to drag me from my perch, but enough to knock me off balance causing me to lose grip of my makeshift spear in my resulting moment of panic. I could hear y/c/n let out a soft whimper of fear from where they lay inside the car. It felt like I was watching a movie scene in slow motion as my only real weapon, unconventional as it was, teetered off the edge of the rooftop before disappearing into a sea of the undead.

Dread settled low in my stomach as I realized what had just happened. We were truly and utterly fucked.

As hands clambered at my feet, and hungry jaws snapped too close for comfort, and I wondered what in the fuck I was going to do now, my eyes drifted across the crowd of monsters, landing upon the corpse of a small boy, whose body was torn open at the gut. He was wearing ragged pajamas that appeared to have once depicted dinosaurs, but were now torn, threadbare, and coated in a thick layer of grime. In his hand he still clutched an equally derelict stuffed bear.

Something inside of me snapped.

Determination boiled anew in my veins and suddenly I was fighting again. Kicking the walker closest to me in the face once, twice, three times before it went down in a shower of gore.

I could do this. For my child? I could do anything.

“Yeah, that’s right, fucker! You just fuck right the hell off, asshole!”, I yelled as the geek fell.

I don’t know how long it went on, and I quickly lost track of how many I took down. I just kept kicking, yelling, and fighting with every ounce of strength I possessed. It was only when I looked up from the most recently fallen undead to take on the next that I found that the road was littered with walker remains and not a one was left standing.

I slowly climbed down from atop the car, already feeling the adrenaline rapidly leave my system. I retrieved my fallen spear from where I’d spotted it peaking out from beneath a rotting torso, before the car door burst open and my arms were full with the only thing that really mattered in this desolate world.

“Mama!”, their little voice cried as they latched their small arms around my neck.

I stood, hoisting y/c/n onto my hip, and allowed myself one moment to bask in the comfort of knowing that my child was safe in my arms for one more day.

In that moment, I just let myself breathe, stroking my fingers through y/c/n’s y/c/h/c hair and letting the relief that I was alive, that we were still alive, begin to sink in.“Holy shit.”

“I’d say that about sums it up, yes.”, a masculine voice sounded from behind me.

I quickly spun round, shielding the child in my arms from potential threat as best as I could given the circumstances, to see a small group of people on horseback slow to a stop in the road before us. All were clad in armor, looking for all the world like post-apocalyptic knights. One man, with dark skin, a kind face, and long dreadlocks more salt than pepper, whom I assumed to be their leader, slowly dismounted his stead, raising his hands up in a gentle surrender as he did so.

“We mean you no ill will, my Lady.”, the man assured. “ I apologize, my people and I did not mean to frighten you. We were traveling along the road and heard you fending off the dead, thought perhaps you were in need of aid. It seems, however, that you had it under control.”, the man finished, with no small amount of awe.

I simply observed this strange group for a moment. They seemed clean, well fed, clearly they had a place – a camp or base of some sort. They also seemed genuine, but I hadn’t made it this long in the new world without knowing that the only beings left in this world more dangerous than the dead were the living. Caution had kept me – had kept _y/c/n_ – alive this far, and I knew better than to trust blindly.

When I stayed silent a beat too long the man spoke again, “I must apologize, it seems my manners have deserted me.”, he gave a wide smile that reached his eyes, extending a hand towards me. “I am King Ezekiel, my comrades and I come from a community not far from here, the Kingdom.”

I paused, briefly wondering if I should take a leap and trust these people, or hop back in the car and pray that the ignition would turn over this time. I felt y/c/n shift in my arms and glanced down to find them peering up at me with big, y/c/e/c eyes full of trust and I knew that I had to give a little. I had to at least see if there was a chance of finding somewhere to resemble _home_. They deserved that.

After all, we could still run if things went south; I was good at that.

“Y/n. And this is y/c/n.”, I said, cautiously extending my hand to meet this so called ‘King’s’.

Ezekiel grasped it, but instead of the handshake I was expecting, he brought to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to my knuckles instead, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Y/n.”

In his eyes I saw nothing but kindness and honesty, and so when he asked, “Would the two of you perhaps like to come with us back to our community?”, I knew I was making the right choice when I replied, “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! Constructive criticism is super welcome as I've never really written x reader before! Also, please don't try to kick a herd of walkers to death from on top of a car. That's a really easy way to get killed and should only be used as a last resort.


End file.
